Unpaid Nursing Home fees after death - who is liable?

ratty67

I have a few updates to give you all!

DH mulled over all the advice given towards the end of last week and yesterday made several phone calls.

1) The Probate Office were extremely helpful. Yes we can lodge the Will with them should he so chose to. He was also advised he could lodge a caveat against the issue of a Grant of Letters of Administration for the sum of £15. This would last for 6 months and should stop the daughter in her tracks.

DH has chosen (after legal consultation) to lodge the caveat. I found the correct format online and that plus a covering letter plus cheque has gone in the post this morning. Your move daughter

2) The solicitor has sent a very strongly worded letter to the daughter that in essence tells her to 'back off' and to remind her that by stating her Mother died Intestate she is breaking the Law. DH received his copy this morning so I'm sat here now awaiting the resulting explosion!

3) The funeral directors have just left a message on my answerphone stating that the daughter has been in touch with them (finally) to tell them she will be giving them instructions regarding her Mother's ashes shortly (the point of that was what?!!).

She has also told them once again to send all correspondance to the solicitors. She must be getting fed up with one reminder bill per week landing on her doorstep! Unfortunately for her they're going to keep landing as it is DH handling matters and not the solicitor and he is far from being in a position to settle the bill.

4) Our last certified copy of the will has winged it's way to one of the Insurance companies yesterday via recorded delivery. This is the Insurance Co that we found out last week had been told the lady died Intestate. Hope they throw the book at the daughter.

5) More letters have been sent to the bank asking for clarification on some of the transactions appearing on the statements.

6) Still no concrete news from the LA. Their stance is now simple. If the daughter had any legally given control over her Mother's finances (Deputy, Appointee etc) then she is liable for the bill. If she didn't then the estate will have to pay it. That statnce does appear to give a green light to those who wish to financially abuse an elderly person to do so knowing they will never be chased for the money.

Phew - and it's only Tuesday morning! At least the weekend was quiet :rotfl:

ratty67

OMG.

I think I've already mentioned here that there appeared to be monthly premiums being paid to the Royal London insurance co. They showed up on the lady's single bank account statements. DH has repeatedly telephoned them but they stated they could find no record of a policy in the lady's name or at either address given (her last known or her daughters). DH resorted to writing to them.

They have just phoned. Yes there was an insurance policy. Address still that of the lady and not her daughter. Beggers belief how they couldn't trace this for all the last few weeks. Guess what? They've already paid out. Last month. That old "my Mother died without a will" rubbish. Does this mean she already has letters of administration I wonder?

They want to see the will, naturally and a covering letter describing exactly what we think the daughter has done (FRAUD) and they will investigate. DH is going to ask them for a copy of the claim form daughter has filled in. Her signature in black and white!

Does this mean they will have to pay out again and claim it back from daughter? Do we take it to the police? Will they? Has the estate lost this money now?

I cannot type the words I really want to here, I'd be banned immediately Safe to say we're pretty angry.

Savvy_Sue

I have more questions in the light of your most recent post ...

1. Was the policy paid out AFTER you started to enquire about it? If so, I would say you had strong grounds for a serious complaint. Even if not, it is unsatisfactory that your initial enquiries were met with "can't find anything" yet someone else has been able to claim on the policy, possibly* fraudulently. The insurance co must have a complaints procedure, phone up and ask what it is, and follow it. If you don't get satisfaction there will be a regulator or ombudsman but you have to exhaust the internal complaints system first.

* I say 'possibly' because I know on my pension there is a named beneficiary. If the daughter was the named beneficiary on this policy, that might pass outside the estate, IYSWIM. She might only have had to prove that she was the named beneficiary and that her mother was dead.

2. It's too late to plough back through the whole thread, but would this policy be enough to cover the funeral and / or the care home costs? I believe I remember you saying that the daughter arranged the funeral, so if you can establish that the insurance payout was more than the debt to the undertaker, is it worth another solicitor's letter stating that as she's claimed the policy she should pay the undertaker? I don't know the legal position on this so don't just listen to me!

ratty67

Unfortunately this policy didn't come to light until we received the bank statements. The daughter (who has all the information) is sharing nothing with us except for the bills! They paid her in mid March so by the time we'd discovered it she'd already had the money (and gone on holiday...). The line she used with Phoenix was that her Mother died without a will. I'm willing to bet my life she did the same thing with the Royal London.

This of course doesn't explain Royal London's inabilty to track the policy down until the *countless* time of asking. To clear things up slightly, it was their person who mentioned the words 'fraudulant claim' so we don't believe at this point in time that the daughter was the beneficiary of this policy. If she was, why do they want to see a copy of the will? It wouldn't matter, surely?!

We believe this policy would be enough to at least cover the funeral bill. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just tell daughter to cough up

Better news for the day, the Halifax have removed daughters details from their system so nothing can accidentally be copied to her and the other Insurance Co have said they will pay out without waiting for probate.

Still no word from the LA one way or another. We're taking no news to be good news right now!

EdInvestor

With life insurance policies, they can either be written in trust or not.If they are written in trust then the money goes to the nominated beneficiaries, not to the estate ,as with pensions which are always written in trust. If the policy is not written in trust the proceeds will land in the estate. The trustees have discretion to pay out to whomever they like, but would not normally see a problem if the nominated beneficiary on a policy written in trust was the deceased's daughter.So you need to ask the insurance cos whether or not the policies werre written in trust.

Savvy_Sue

"In trust" - I knew there was a phrase for it!

sloughflint

ratty67 wrote: »

2) The solicitor has sent a very strongly worded letter to the daughter that in essence tells her to 'back off' and to remind her that by stating her Mother died Intestate she is breaking the Law. DH received his copy this morning so I'm sat here now awaiting the resulting explosion!

I wonder what the reasoning for this was? Wouldn't catching the daughter red-handed have been simpler and enable all the other wrong doings to be investigated by the police as well?

localhero

I think I would have instructed the solicitor to go a bit further - ie "the estate is owed xx pounds by you, so unless it's reimbursed we will be seeking recovery through the courts".

Is this the same solicitor that you didn't have much confidence in? - Because by now I would have got somebody clued up on board that can help get this mess resolved.

Is there a plan - criminal action or civil action?

sandraroffey

surely there has to be a plan in mind? she cant just walk away with all this??? can she???

localhero

I would hope so, even if the OP hasn't got one. The solicitor should be discussing the various options with his clients.